The panniers are great! Today was the first time I've carried my laptop in with me - so it and a towel in one pannier, clothes + toiletries in the other - probably 10kgs in all. It added weight to the bike, but meant there was none on my back making the ride a lot more comfortable.

Comfort - after complaining about knee/lower quad pain and being directed to a web site on pain points I adjusted my seat up quite a bit. No pain now, and my quads aren't anywhere near as tight this morning.

Glasses - being a bit cooler this morning, I need to be careful to breath 'down' when exhaling through my mouth rather than 'up' (think bottom lip out) as it results in instantly fogged up glasses

Near misses (3) The first was a BMX rider dressed in black in the dark coming around a corner in the opposite direction. Didn't see him until I was on top of him. No hit, but felt like mentioning the value of lights to him.

The second was near East Malvern station - a cat jumped out in front of me, and rather than just run across the road, decided to run in front of the bike for 10-20m. Had to brake hard not to run over it.

The third I observed at Kooyong. Rider 1 was crossing Bourke? Rd towards the bike track, rider 2 was riding along the footpath at speed near the entry of bike path. Rider 1 didn't see rider 2, rider 2 slammed on brakes (too much rear) resulting in skid. No collision.

So in all, the ride felt easier, as a combined result of the panniers and higher seat position. I mentioned my HR to some colleagues over coffee and they're concerned about how high it's getting. I guess I should bite the bullet and see a sports medico. Can anyone suggest anyone in the SE of Melbourne?

Your HR does seem a little high for the speed your going but I'm no expert.
My max was 181 today but that was hitting speeds in the mid 40's plus a hill climb and 189 last week in a race.
Maybe try getting the cadence up from 75 to 90?
I find around 100 suits me.
Try and see when your HR hits max. Is it on a hill, into the wind or when cats run our in front of you?

Keep records of you HR and ride distances and speeds. At least then you can see if it does get lower over time.

pugsly wrote: ... Near misses ... a cat jumped out in front of me, and rather than just run across the road, decided to run in front of the bike for 10-20m. Had to brake hard not to run over it ...

I only had one 'near miss' on this morning's ride. Heading down towards the Lower Molongolo, I suddenly found myself in the middle of four kangaroos standing (then jumping about) on the road. Fortunately, I was keeping my speed down (it's a glorious descent that usually sees speeds of 60+ km/hr) because it was still pretty dark. I don't know who was the most surprised - me or them! Luckily, their escape routes were all away from me, so there were no real consequences. I wish I had a heart rate monitor, as my heart definitely sped up!
ps. why do we say 'near miss' - surely a 'near miss' is actually a 'hit'?pps. yes, I did have my lights on, but the road to the Lower Molongolo doesn't have street lights and its easy to 'out-ride' their coverage.

HRmax usually hits up hills at high cadence. Generally speaking for me the higher the cadence, the higher the HR. I'm riding for a candence of 80. 90 Is seriously working hard for me. I'm just riding for commuting and fitness, not racing

Were you standing and pumping on the hill climbs? That could explain the high HR.

I would still suggest a higher cadence. Higher cadence at around 90 should be less stressful on the cardio than pushing harder at a lower cadence, for the same speed. Of course, people need to gradually build up their higher cadence.

I know what you're saying about cadence Pugsly, especially with the 'higher cadence, higher HR' thing.

However, when you do the trip tomorrow, go DOWN two gears but keep the speed the same. Your cadence will push into the eighties - shouldn't go as high as 90 with only two gears. More importantly, your effort will go down. Yes, you will be spinning faster and your experience tells you that your HR will follow, but with the lower gears, you won't be working your knees or body as hard and you'll find that your HR will settle back a little.

Once you get your cadence down into the mid-seventies, you are relying on EFFORT to push the bike along whereas by gearing down a bit, your efforts will be going into spinning and you'll find it's a gentler effort, less muscle work and joint strain and your body will be happier. The trick is to get the legs used to spinning that fast, but they won't do it if they have to work hard as well, an easy mistake to make while you're still fine tuning your body.

It's easy to equate leg speed with speed over the ground. What I'm betting you'll find is that you are used to putting a certain effort into the pedals and that when you increase the cadence, you are trying to maintain the same effort resulting in higher speeds but burnout - you will automatically do this because that is what you are used to so you have to retrain your body to work with a lower effort. Sounds odd but this is the beauty of having a comuter vs 'feel' - 'feel' only works if you know what you're feeling ... and you need to be fit to do that effectively.

So, what you are looking for is the same speed, higher cadence (leg speed) but lower effort, and you're using the speedo and the cadence meter to monitor this.

A higher cadence will result in a higher HR because you making those big thigh muscles work faster, this means they need more blood and your heart accelerates to oblige. By lowering the actual work those muscles do, by lowering the effort, the heart doesn't have to provide as much blood though you may not notice this effect immediately. Your HR will still be higher than pushing along at 75, but not as high as if you are keeping the same effort up.

I find that for a given speed, dropping a gear or two drops my HR, but that's because I've acquired some fitness and trained those muscles to work at that higher rate - it's the old 'you have to have some fitness to work at getting fit' routine again.

So, same speed, lower gears, cadence anywhere it darned well likes in the eighties, and see how you go. If the HR is too high, drop the speed a little, but drop into a low gear to keep the cadence up.

pugsly wrote:The panniers are great! Today was the first time I've carried my laptop in with me - so it and a towel in one pannier, clothes + toiletries in the other - probably 10kgs in all. It added weight to the bike, but meant there was none on my back making the ride a lot more comfortable.

Don't forget to take the extra 10kg into account. That's a lot of extra weight to push around.

Thanks for the tips on the cadence. All advice is very much appreciated. I guess I need to concentrate more on getting my cadence up a bit more. The trails I'm following tend to be a bit windy in sections, and I tend to slow my cadence down going down hills to give my legs a bit of a break which would contribute to a lower average. For the most part, I try and keep things at or above 80. I probably leave shifting down before hills too late only changing down as my cadence drops, I probably should shift and speed up before hitting the hills.

As for the weight loss - it's not really happening as such. I've had a few people in the office mention that I look like I've lost weight, but the scales tell a different tale. The rack and panniers do add a bit of weight, but most of it was on my back before - so not a lot of difference I think.

pugsly wrote: ... I probably should shift and speed up before hitting the hills ...

Absolutely - the slope will bring your cadence back to normal soon enough. Stay on top of your gearing, rather than letting it get on top of you.

pugsly wrote: As for the weight loss - it's not really happening as such. I've had a few people in the office mention that I look like I've lost weight, but the scales tell a different tale. The rack and panniers do add a bit of weight, but most of it was on my back before - so not a lot of difference I think.

A couple of others have posted about a slow initial weight loss - don't forget, you are changing shape as much as you are loosing weight. So those 'you look like you've lost some weight' comments are spot on. You have lost some weight, but in general you a whole lot 'fitter' which is what people notice as much as the weight loss.

pugsly wrote:Being the chronic over-achiever that I am, it's a keg, not a six pack and there has been a slight reduction. I should have a measure I guess.

Yes, measure. I've dropped from 88 to 86.5 in about 3 weeks and my wife was surprised I was still 86, she thought I was down to 82 because I've lost so much off my waist and turned it into muscle. The muscle building will level out then you'll big results on the scales.